Scorpion Betrayal (18 page)

“Stand up,
sooka suna!
You don't sit here. Who are you?”

The Palestinian sat back and stared at him.

“I represent the owners. FIMAX Shipping. We need to make an unscheduled port stop in Genoa. Happens all the time. The ten thousand is for you. No one knows.” He nudged the money closer to the captain.

“FIMAX Ukraina company. You are not Ukraina,” Chernovetsky said, his voice thick with the brandy. He picked up the remote and shut the TV.

“FIMAX is Ukrainian based in Kiev, but the owners are not Ukrainian.”

“How you know this?” Chernovetsky said, his voice uncertain for the first time. The Palestinian suspected it was because the captain knew the owners were Arabs, who had purchased the company six months earlier. “They send you spy on me?”

“Everyone knows about the drinking,
mon capitaine.
I am from the owners. Do this one favor and your position is secure.”

“This money for do nothing? Stop in Genoa, unload containers. Inside what? Drugs? Guns? Contraband?
Pishov na khuj!
You think no one ever offer me money for smuggle before? I lose my captain ticket. Get out or I throw you off ship!”

“The owners want a stop in Genoa.”

“I am captain of
Zaina,”
he said, taking a swallow of the brandy. “I decide, not owners. We go Marseilles.”

“No drugs, no guns, no problems, I promise. I'll make it twenty thousand euros. What's so important about Marseilles? You have a little
pétasse
whore in port? With twenty thousand you could buy a hundred women. Don't have to watch DVDs,” the Palestinian said coldly.

“Get out,
sooka suna!
I throw you in irons!” Chernovetsky shouted, standing up and gesturing with his glass, spilling the brandy.

The Palestinian stood and retrieved the money and the papers from the table.

“You need a drink, Capitaine. Have another brandy. Think it over. The offer is still good,” he said, and left the cabin.

He went out on the deck to wait. He didn't think Chernovetsky would try to arrest him. He would start to do it but first have another drink, and somewhere he would figure that if the owners wanted it to happen, it was better to leave it alone. Either way it didn't matter. He had already made his arrangements with the first and second officers, both of whom were Muslims. The first officer, Ademovic, was a Bosnian from Sarajevo; the second officer a Turk from Kusadasi. He had paid them five thousand apiece to make sure they would back him up. He had given the captain his chance, he thought. Now there was no choice. One way or another the
Zaina
had to make port in Genoa, where, if the deal he had made with Francesca Bartolo of the Camorra held, the contents of the containers would be through Italian customs in a few hours.

He looked forward, the horizon invisible in darkness that was complete except for the stars and the running lights of a container ship off the starboard bow, heading north, in the opposite direction, no doubt for Piraeus. The sea was running easy with one- to two-foot swells, the ship dark and silent, but for the running lights and the light on the bridge. The odds were good he could leave his post for twenty or thirty minutes without being detected. It was the perfect time.

He went to the lifeboat where he had stored a backpack with things he didn't want found. There was a complication. It was important that the captain's death not be thought of as suspicious. Otherwise they might hold the ship and the crew while they investigated, which in Italy could take Allah knew how long. He poked around in the backpack in the darkness, not wanting to show any kind of light, until he felt the pouch with the disposable latex gloves, hypodermic, and pills. He slipped the pouch into his jacket pocket and made his way aft, back to the captain's quarters. He listened at the hatch and could hear Chernovetsky snoring even through the metal door. He looked around the passageway for a final check. The only sound was the throbbing of the engine. He checked his watch; it was nearing eight bells, and realized he'd have to move quickly.

He opened the hatch as quietly as he could, closed it behind him, and turned on his key-chain pocket light. The captain was sprawled on his bunk, his snores rattling noisily at the back of his throat. He was still in his pants and undershirt, one bare foot half hanging off the bunk. The bottle of Tavia brandy on the table was nearly empty, the glass on its side, vibrating with the ship's movement. Assuming he was out cold enough not to feel the injection, he took the latex gloves and Demerol pills out of the pouch and placed them on the ledge next to the bunk. He removed the tip from the syringe, filled it with the entire ampule of liquid Demerol, and put the tip and the empty ampule back into the pouch. This was the critical moment, he thought, positioning himself so he could do the guillotine choke hold if Chernovetsky woke up.

He felt between the captain's toes for the dorsal digital vein. Chernovetsky snorted in his sleep but didn't stir. As soon as he thought he felt the vein, he jabbed the needle into the space next to the big toe and pushed the top, emptying the syringe. Chernovetsky's snore stopped in mid-snore and he started to move. The Palestinian glanced at his face. The captain's eyes were open but with consciousness just returning. Chernovetsky was about to breathe in to shout when the Palestinian grabbed the pillow and shoved it over his face, holding it down with all his strength as the captain thrashed feebly against the pressure. Half unconscious, with a rapid intravenous injection of Demerol that could cause cardiac arrest multiplied by the effects of the alcohol, the captain would be dead shortly either way.

After a minute that seemed almost endless, his arms pressing the pillow down with his weight, all movement stopped. He held the pillow over Chernovetsky's face another thirty seconds, then lifted it off and felt for the pulse in the neck. Chernovetsky was dead.

He put the syringe back into the pouch, opened the Demerol pill container, and just to be sure, wiped the container and cap clean of fingerprints with a corner of the sheet from the bunk, then pressed the captain's fingers on the container and cap. He placed the pillow under Chernovetsky's head and closed the open staring eyes, shoving two of the pills deep into Chernovetsky's mouth. Chernovetsky was still alive for about half a minute after the injection, so anything other than an exhaustive autopsy would likely conclude that he had died from a heart attack caused by the combination of Demerol and alcohol, he thought, as he put the pouch back into his pocket and quietly exited the cabin.

Back on deck, he dropped the gloves, syringe, tip, ampule, and the empty pouch one at a time over the rail into the sea. He went forward to finish his watch. The night was still dark, except for the stars and the lights of the container ship he had seen earlier, now well astern. He scanned ahead, the constellation Leo midway to zenith over the bow. He lit a cigarette and for the first time in a long time allowed himself to think about her and wonder where she was.

The steward's assistant, a Filipino everyone called Manolo, found the captain at 0830 hours when he brought him his usual breakfast of buckwheat pancakes and tea. Later that morning First Officer Edis Ademovic sent for Seaman Lababi to meet him in the officers' mess. They were alone, but Ademovic put a finger to his lips, opened the hatch and looked around the passageway to make sure no one was listening.

“Did you do this?” Ademovic said.

“I was on watch,” the Palestinian said.

“So you had nothing to do with it?”

“The captain was an
ivrogne.
” A drunk. “Everyone knows it. Who knows what else he took?”

“So you know there were drugs?”

“How would I know? I'm just a seaman.”

“So you say.”

“Are we going to Genoa?”

“You have the papers?”

“Here,” the Palestinian said, handing him the bill of lading papers and authorizations. “You just have to initial at the bottom.”

“I'm captain now,” the Bosnian said.

“So?”

“I should get ten thousand,” Ademovic said, moistening his lips with his tongue.

The Palestinian looked at him coldly. Abruptly, he smiled; a smile that had nothing to do with his eyes. “I don't have it.”

Ademovic leaned close. “What can you give?”

“Seven, no more. But I'll put in a good word for you with the owners.”

“Seven,” Ademovic said, taking the papers and initialing them. “You leave the ship at Genoa?”

“Once the containers are off, you can find my replacement in Genoa or sail one AB short.”

“Bring the money before officers' mess tonight. I have to go to the bridge,” Ademovic said, getting up.

“So the
capitaine
was taking drugs?” the Palestinian asked.

“Painkillers.”

“Painkillers and booze. A bad combination.”

“So are you. Bring the money. After, when we get to Genoa, get off my ship,” Ademovic said.

“Why are you talking this way? I had nothing to do with the
capitaine,”
the Palestinian said.

“Maybe. But I am not a drunk. Not so easy to kill.”

The Palestinian came close to Ademovic, forcing him to back up.

“We're on the same side, First Officer. We're just doing what the owners want us to do so they give a bonus. I did nothing, but if I were to be involved,” the Palestinian whispered intently, “you would be too. You were paid. We're in this together. All we have to do is berth in Genoa. So long as we do that, I am the best friend you'll ever have in this world—or the next.”

“Just remember who gives the orders.”

“You are the
capitaine, Ilhamdulilah,
thanks be to God,” the Palestinian said as he left the officers' mess.

“Why did the first officer want to see you?” Gabir, a Tunisian seaman, whispered to him in Arabic that afternoon. They were working aft on the rust scraping and painting detail. The Palestinian wiped the sweat from his forehead and squinted in the sun as he glanced at the horizon. The ship was running northwesterly and had begun a slight roll as they headed into the tricky currents of the Straits of Messina, Mount Etna a distant smudge off the port stern.

“I was on watch when the captain died. The first officer wanted to know if I heard or saw something,” the Palestinian said.

“The captain was
sakran,”
meaning a drunk. “Something was bound to happen,” Gabir said.

“Better he die than something happen to the ship.”

Gabir looked at him. “Truly. But it is not good for a captain to die.”

No, it wasn't, the Palestinian thought. He hadn't wanted to do it. That
yebnen kelp
son of a dog Ukrainian was just so stubborn. Still, Ademovic and the second officer, the Turk, Duyal Ghanem, had both been paid off. It was in Ademovic's interest to go to Genoa, especially with a dead captain, although the Palestinian knew he wouldn't be able to stop worrying until the ship passed Cap Corse at the northern tip of Corsica and he saw its heading bound for Genoa and not Marseilles.

“Ma'alesh,”
it's okay, “things happen.” The Palestinian shrugged.

“Did you see anything?” Gabir whispered.

“La,
I was on watch. Anyway, no one has suggested the captain's death was anything other than natural. He was a
sakran.
Everyone knew it. You said so yourself.”

“Inshallah,
that will be the end of it. This is becoming an unlucky ship,” Gabir said, touching the silver Hand of Fatima hanging on a chain around his neck. The Palestinian went back to work. He hoped what Gabir said about an unlucky ship wasn't true. He was so close, and at that moment felt a sliver of dread that he didn't have a
haz sa'eed
good luck charm that like Gabir he could touch too. He would need the luck. Once he was ready in Europe, he would have to go back to America.

Thirty hours later the
Zaina
berthed at the terminal port in Genoa. Officers of the
polizia di stato
and gray-uniformed
guardia di finanza
came aboard to examine the captain's body in his quarters, while the dockside gantry cranes unloaded the containers marked for Genoa. As the Palestinian left the ship, he squinted in the sun, looking back at the bridge, but couldn't see the first officer. The Italian inquiry must be keeping him busy, he thought as he went down the gangplank, unnoticed by anyone. There was no sign of the Camorra on the dock or terminal building, but the containers came through the Italian
dogana
with the crates stamped and unopened in a record six hours.

Less than a half hour later Moroccan seaman Hassan Lababi no longer existed. The Palestinian, without the Moroccan passport and seaman's card he'd torn into pieces and flushed down a toilet in the terminal building, was now using an Algerian passport and Italian resident card that identified him as Mejdan Bonatello, a nod to the fact that many Algerians had Italian surnames dating from World War Two. He got into the first of two big Mercedes armored trucks bearing the logo of
BANCA POPOLARE DI MILANO,
into which the crates containing the uranium had been loaded. The other crates from Volgograd were loaded into the second truck: As he boarded the first truck, the Moroccan who had driven the van that picked him up that first day in Torino handed him an armored truck guard's uniform and a gun.